Erin Braxton (00:00)

I've had three jobs post college graduation, two of which I was laid off from. All right. So when I get comments in my comment section talking about I've never been able to keep a job longer than two and a half years, I've been laid off as many as 12 times, that resonates with me because I know

what being let go multiple times made me feel like. Now, I was only let go twice, but within a short amount of time, I worked in corporate America 11 years before I went at it alone. And having worked in those environments and not having a positive experience in any of the three environments, even though I was

wasn't let go of one. I know the level of psychological damage that did to me. I know that I felt like I wasn't good enough at my job. I let that feedback of being let go get into my head. I had professional self-worth issues, which I've talked about before. So I get it. Let me read to you.

A couple of comments that I received after my interview with Celeste Warren last week.

I'm 35 and for the last 10 years in my corporate career, have felt constantly trapped in a flight or fight state. I've never lasted more than two and a half years at any company. Ultimately, I would love to grow in one organization, but I feel like it's nearly impossible to do so as a black woman. Last month, I found myself laid off again. Fortunately, I was able to land a contract role in my field. I am staying hopeful.

for my next permanent role. I responded to her and I suggested that perhaps the contract role can bring you to opportunities that you never imagined. And then somebody responded, a different person. I agree with you 100%. I'm in my mid 40s and I've only held several permanent positions, not more than two and a half years.

At the moment, I only do contracts and I also love it.

I know that Black women have been laid off in droves in 2025. But this video today, I want to talk about what happens when you have been repeatedly laid off and what does that really mean. All right. There are five questions that you need to ask yourself if you think you want to stay in corporate America.

besides the one question of whether or not you want to do your own thing. And there's other conversations that we need to touch base with when it comes to this. We need to talk about the changing job market and what it looks like in the future. We need to talk about real reflection and really looking at ourselves to take responsibility if

if there is some that needs to be taken. Now, this is gonna be a hard conversation. This is gonna be one of those things where some people might get pissed at me for saying what I'm gonna say. I don't think it's too harsh, but I think sometimes we need to reflect. I think that, and I'll share more with you as we have this discussion today, that a lot of times when we are met with confrontations and issues and things like that in the workplace,

We don't always handle it the best. Yes, there's systemic racism. Yes, these people are on some BS in these jobs. No, it is not always your fault. Yes, yes, yes, you are sometimes a target. I 1,000 % agree. I have experienced it myself, okay? But I do wanna talk about what this means for us as black women. And if you do choose to stay in...

corporate America in a corporate role, what are the questions that you need to ask yourself? And I mean, not just ask yourself, but really sit with yourself and think about to determine what your next move really needs to be. There's no right, there's no wrong. If you want to stay in corporate, that's fine. If you want to leave, that's fine. I just want you to be successful with whatever it is you choose to do. So before we get into it,

Welcome to the Coffee No Cream podcast. My name is Erin Braxton and I am the host of Coffee No Cream. Here on Coffee No Cream, are unapologetically dedicated to black women and we share what I like to call Coffee No Cream moments, those things that happen to us black women in business and in life just because we are black women. I want to ask you before we get going to please like, please share, please subscribe to the channel if you have not already.

I so appreciate all of the support and the love that you guys have been showing me since I started this podcast in May of 2025. I'm so excited to keep going, to keep sharing, to keep showing up for you. Leave me a comment, tell me what you think. Join in on the conversation. We've got a Facebook group, the link is below. We've got free educational resource tool with almost 2000 free courses, totally free.

CoffeeNoCream.com forward slash free and that's it. So let's just get into the episode. So as a lot of you guys know, you know, I'm an entrepreneur, you know, I have my own thing. ⁓ And I love that for me, but.

It's not for everybody. It's not for everybody. I wouldn't recommend it for everybody. I think that we need to find our place, our position where we bring the most value, where we find the most happiness and peace wherever we can. And for many of us, for most of us, that's not going to be doing your own thing. Now, last week, Celeste and I talked about how to, or Celeste gave us great opinions on how to

really find an organization that you align with, that shares the same values as you. And really took you, she really took you through some points to help you learn to do that before you enter into an organization. But a lot of people, a lot of us black women, we have found ourselves not in organizations where we're feeling supported, we're feeling valued.

we're feeling appreciated, we're acknowledged, all of those things, and we choose to handle it a multitude of different ways. So the first question, which isn't part of the six questions that I'm gonna go over with you is, are you interested wanting, thinking about, doing your own thing to just get away from the mess? If the question is no, if the question is not yet, then,

I urge you to keep listening because we're gonna go through the questions that you might wanna ask yourself if that's something that you're not trying to do right now. We all start somewhere, right? I wasn't ready to start my own business fresh out of college. I made mistakes when I did start my own business. And a lot of people aren't ready. They might not be ready until they're 40, until they're 50, maybe even 60.

to do their own thing if they ever do. ⁓ And here's the thing. One of the things that I mentioned earlier when I was reading the comments from the two women who left those comments under the video, and I don't think I said, one woman even wrote, she had been let go 12 times, okay? Sometimes I think when... ⁓

that sort of thing happens to you repeatedly, repeatedly. I think God is trying to tell you maybe you're headed in the wrong direction or maybe this isn't the right direction for you, whether that be the wrong organization, maybe a different path for you, this isn't the right field for you. It could be a number of things. But I think if that happens to you so many times, there's a message in it for you. And I strongly urge you to try to figure out what the message

The lesson is so you can get yourself back on track. For those of you who are wanting to stay in a corporate job, who do not want to leave, who do not see themselves as entrepreneurial, I get it. We're going to go over some questions. But I just want to say this. ⁓ We have to look at the job landscape as it is right now.

we have to look off at it in the future. Right now you're hearing a lot of people talk about fractional work, fractional CEO work, fractional COO work, just fractional work, which is basically temporary, okay? Part time you brought in to do something, make things happen in an organization and you leave, okay? This is relatively new, newer way to think about

freelancing or having your own thing. I mean, we didn't talk this way even 10 years ago. You've got a lot of consultants. You guys know that. You've got a lot of people who are doing freelance work. You've got people who've got portfolio work. So there are a lot of things that they do. I actually happen to be one of those people. So the landscape is changing. Black women were raised up to

go to school, work, work, work, work, work real hard, get their degree, get out, get a job. Jobs where they're able to serve and work really hard, primarily teachers, healthcare industry. We get those types of jobs and now of course we're branching out and we're CEOs and CFOs and C-suite and all the things. But we're conditioned to believe that

the jobs in these corporations, the jobs that these corporations provide to us are a form of stability. We're conditioned to believe that. But things have changed. It's not 1980. It's not 1990. And that false sense of stability is not what we thought it was. All right? Because even though companies, organizations had license to fire you, get rid of you back in the day,

They're taking that license and exercising it now more and more and more. Okay. So there's not necessarily stability in working for an organization versus working for yourself. I want to say that the landscape is changing. We're looking at more people who are finding the value in what they can provide. I talked about that two episodes ago. I'll put the link up here.

And they're able to articulate that so they can be of service to organizations in this new way of working. This is a new type of career. So if you are not going to be a corporate person or if you're having trouble and you're struggling because you feel rejected, because I'm going to tell you something. When you lose your job repeatedly, it does get in your head. I don't care.

what anybody says, gets in your head. I struggle with this. You have low professional self-worth issues, ⁓ professional, you know, esteem issues. You struggle. You almost believe it. And you've got to get so far away from it so you can like see it clearly. So when I go through the questions that I'm going to go through right now, I want you to have an open mind.

If you're upset, that's fine. Leave a comment. We can talk about it. I'm not victim blaming. I'm just simply stating if you want to stay in a corporate environment, there are things that you're going to have to deal with and you need to be honest with yourself on whether or not you can do it or not. And that's going to determine your success in that organization or any organization going forward.

Now let's start with the first question.

Are you truly, truly emotionally capable of dealing with what it is that you have to put up with and go through when you work in a corporate environment? Now, we all know when you work in a corporate environment, there are systemic pressures, there's racism, there's all the things, there's political games going on, there's bureauc...

bureaucracy, people are getting promoted above you, your training, ⁓ the person who's going to take your job, all of the things are going on, right? And you would have to be a fool to think that you were going to, you're going to go through that unscathed. It has a way of getting to you. Some people have that personality. Some people can just, it's like water off a duck's back. They can deal.

and it doesn't affect them so much. I was not one of those people. When I first started my first job at my first ad agency, I told you guys I was very involved. I did a bunch of stuff in high school. I did a bunch of stuff in college. I was very outgoing. So when you get to a job where you're all of a sudden,

thrust into an environment where people are even less accepting, which happens, you know, the older you get and you see the reality of the world. I was seeing people come in after me, getting promoted before me. was having lies told on me. I just, didn't handle it well. I was very emotional about it. It like literally consumed me. I'm just being honest about the way I handled it.

When I was upset, everybody knew I was upset. I didn't play the game well. I didn't handle it well. Ask yourself if that's you. If it's not you, fine. Okay? But truly try to look at yourself from afar and ask yourself the last time some shit went down at your job or anytime some shit went down at your job, how did you truly handle it?

How did you behave? How did you talk to the people or interact with the people or not interact with people when that happened? How did it make you feel? How did you show up every day? Were you able to perform your work to your fullest potential? Were you able to do that? Some people can play the game and they can play the game beautifully. Doesn't affect them. Others cannot. I am not that type of person. I'm just asking you. All right. So really ask yourself,

Are you really, really emotionally capable of dealing with the BS that happens when you work in a corporate environment? All right?

Second question.

How do you really deal with the power dynamics in an organization when you are not the person with the power? This is a really, really important one because so often because of systemic racism, because of things that are going on, you might find yourself in a position

where you're reporting to someone that you don't think is smarter than you, that you don't feel should be in that position, that you don't respect, that has less experience than you, all right? But that's the person who's giving you your marching orders, who's telling you what to do. How do you really deal with that power dynamic? Can you

Are you angry about it? Are you resentful about it? And how does that come across to those around you? All right, I'm asking you this real talk. Again, let me give you an example. After I left my first advertising agency, I went to work for Neiman Marcus in their corporate marketing department. I lasted there for a little over a year. I was a marketing analyst.

One of the reasons I didn't like that job, and this was not this woman's fault, this was me. This was my fault. I had a boss who I just thought wasn't that smart. And she wasn't dumb. I thought that I just couldn't understand why she didn't want more in life. She's one of these white women who got married.

later in life finally was able to get that baby out everything she could have ever dreamed and she was just like stuck in this ugly ass office with this middle management position and she just had no desire for anything more and that just a little young little you know 20 how old was i when i got that job 20 24 year old erin

could not fathom this. Like, I just didn't feel like, wow, she's just not, she shouldn't be the one I report to. This woman is, I just don't get it, you know? And I felt like the whole organization was kind of like that, to be quite honest. People got in those jobs. They had no ambition. They didn't want to go anywhere. And I was resentful that I had to report to this woman. And everybody,

in my office, everybody in the office at work next to me, they knew how I felt. I was immature. I didn't handle that well. That woman knew I didn't like her. I didn't handle it well. I'm telling you guys, right? I can say that now. And if I saw that woman now, I probably might apologize to her for the way I behaved. I didn't get fired from that job, but I was not a pleasant person.

to work with in that organization. I just felt very stifled, very stunted because people got in there and they started working there when they were very, very young. It was a desirable location to work at when you were in Dallas and they weren't quitting. They weren't retiring. They were too young to retire. So you just, there wasn't a lot of room to grow. And I just, yeah. So I didn't appreciate

that position. I didn't appreciate being in that position. I resented that I had to report to this woman who I felt like was just meh, like blah, like boring, like not smart. And that was on me. All right. So I say all that to say, I have to be honest about how I was presenting in that position. And when you're working with people that aren't necessarily the

the best and the brightest. And as black women, we've been the best and the brightest. We've been the best and the brightest. And we've worked hard to be the best and the brightest. And that just did not sit well with me. I was a little bitch. I'm not even gonna lie. power dynamics are really important. I had no control. I couldn't do anything about it. I wasn't pleasant to be around.

ask yourself, are you similar? You might not be like me or like I was. I'm just telling you.

Check that in yourself because you have to be able to play the game, shut your mouth, step in line and do things the way they want you to do them if you're going to survive in a corporate environment. And clearly I wasn't ready, able or capable of doing that. I have a family member and they recently lost their job.

And they have dealt with sexual harassment in the office. They've dealt with, ⁓ you know, violations of, you know, know, FMLA, FMLA, is that what it is? All kinds of things, disability, accommodations, all the things, all right?

But we're talking about the power dynamic. We're talking about how do you handle power dynamics in the office. Now, while this family member could have been right as rain and they are not incorrect about what has happened to them or how the person handled this and this was illegal against the law and this and that and the third, they still terminated this family member.

All right, and even though the family member was correct, even though this person wasn't wrong, it's a huge inconvenience because even though they could go to the EEOC and sue and do all of the things,

It's a complicated situation because of the organization that this person worked for. Huge organization in town, huge, and few want to mess with that organization.

I told this person, I warned this person, you know, you're very smart, but you don't have to always let everybody know how smart you are because why? You don't have the power. And then when you do that, and especially as black women, when we let people know, when we try to correct their actions toward us, they retaliate. I just was watching a video about this and the research ⁓

about particularly how white women feel when they're being outdone. And research basically shows that they're not happy about it. They feel like they're behind, like they're losing. So when you try to challenge and do all the things and wag your finger in their face and tell them this is wrong, this is against the rule, if you don't have the power, as Ty Robinson said when I had her on the podcast,

I'll put that up here if I can. When they're ready to get rid of you, if they see you as a problem, they will. Understand the power dynamic. They can do a million things. They can do all sorts of shit wrong. Most of the time they're going to win. So if you stay in the position, and I'm not telling you to stay somewhere and become abused and be mistreated. I would never tell you to do some shit like that.

Absolutely, you need to leave. You need to remove yourself from the situation. You need to find something that is more tenable for your nerves and your health and your mental well-being. I'm just saying if you have trouble with power dynamics and you know that this isn't your strong suit to be quiet or to not try to challenge who's in power, ask yourself, are you

really able to deal with power dynamics when it comes to working in a corporate environment.

Now question three, you have to know this was coming.

Real talk, how do you truly handle feedback?

when it's not positive, also known as criticism. How do you handle that? Do you take it on the chin and say, you know what, I'm gonna do better? Do you listen? Do you try to absorb it? Do you learn? Do you immediately get defensive and pissed off?

I can tell you how I've responded to criticism in the past. It's taken me a long time to get to the point where I can accept criticism, especially from people who, like I said, you might not respect. You don't understand why they're there, why they're in the position. How dare they criticize you? They can't even do their job. You know, how do you really deal with that? Because again, when you're in an organization,

you're gonna have reviews, you're gonna get feedback. And if somebody says something to you about you, the way that they say it in a way that you don't like, are you able to handle that in a mature way? Or is it immediate pop back? Is it immediate attitude?

What is it? I mean, be honest with yourself. I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't, and it would have depended who it came from at the time, but a lot of times I didn't handle feedback and criticism well, especially in my last job. And I say this all to say,

Yeah, people are gonna say shit about you. They're gonna try to talk shit about you. You're not gonna like it. But I've said this before, people wanna work with the people that they like. And no, it is not your job to go to work and have people like you. But when you enter these spaces and you decide this is the route you're gonna take as far as your career, people liking you is important. And...

I'm not saying it's fair or right. I'm just saying it's important. People wanna work with you. They like you, right? So when you start popping off at the mouth or being upset and telling people what you think about what they think about you, it's not likable. I had to learn that. Question number four, and this is really important. Can you really...

Let things go. I know this one is a hard one, okay? You go to work, you're at work a huge percentage of your day. You go, they piss you off, they get in your head, they make you angry. It's five o'clock, you leave. Is work coming with you? Is work still in you? It gets on you, it gets in you, you get home, you're still thinking about it.

You're still bothered. It's causing you not to sleep. It's causing you stress and anxiety. Natasha Williams is going to come back and share her research findings with us, but just a little ⁓ preview. And yeah, for most black people, there are physical symptoms of the stress. It's one of those taxes that Natasha will talk to us about as far as the toll work has on us. Are you able to let things go?

Some people are some people can just leave work and that's fine and don't think about that until the next day But we've talked about having the Sunday scaries, know You're you're it's Sunday and you're stressed out because you got to go to work on Monday This stuff is real when I decided I was moving to California I'm sure I told you guys this in another video. It was Christmas Day and I Was so pissed off. I hated everybody at my job

And I'm in the shower, everybody in the house is asleep still. I'm in the shower pissed thinking about these people. It's Christmas. Those people weren't thinking about me because somebody had messed with my bonus. And I'm sitting here like I got to get like a sermon. I got to get a word. I got to get something because I got to calm myself down. I am an emotional person. I'm getting better now that I'm older, but I take things with me. I carry it. I walk around with it.

If you're that person, you've got to ask yourself truly, is this going to be a problem for me if I want to stay in a corporate environment?

And the fifth question is, are you really a person who needs more autonomy when they work? Do you thrive better when you work alone?

You can go to work because you have to go to work and sit at your desk and not talk to anybody and not communicate and not want to participate in all the bullshit like we know better than to do.

But would it be better for you if you're staying as an employee for someone that you work remotely, that you find a job where at least part of the time you can work from home so you don't have to get all in the BS? Are you a better person who's working on solo projects? Do you work well with groups? Are you a team player? That's what they like to say. The team, the team. Are you a team player?

A lot of people think they're team players, but they're not. Step back from that thing and look and think and ask yourself, when I've been put in situations with other people at work, how do I feel? How does it work out? Do I enjoy it? Am I dreading it? Do other people like to work with me? Do people like me in the office, period? Again, all of this

we know is a bunch of mess and foolishness. We know that. Okay, we do. I'm not telling you

This because I don't. All right. I'm not telling you this or telling you to ask yourself these questions because I blame you for anything that has happened to you. I'm saying, simply saying that when you make the decision to stay working for people and you're continually finding yourself with the pink slip, you have to examine what role you played.

whether it's right or wrong, I'm not saying that you're wrong. Yes, those people were racist. Yes, those people did you wrong. Yes, those people lied on you. Yes, those people tried you. They tested you. They pressed on you. They got into your business or tried. They reported you. All of that, okay? Yes. But when you decide to stay working for people, you have to ask yourself,

Can you really deal with it? And really, the reason that you're asking yourself this is because you've got to get yourself to a place where you can find peace. If you can do that, fine. But I wanted to have this conversation today because as somebody who has fucked her mind over or allowed people to, because I bought into all of the

the lies that were told to me at some point in time and I had to work to get over those things, I don't want you to find yourself in that same situation if you're not able to hold on to a job. Just maybe revisit it, look at it differently. Again, the future of employment is not going to be to work at a company for 20 years, for 30 years.

you're going to see more fractional opportunities. You're going to see more fractional work, more consulting work. I met a woman recently, she has a company and the whole team, they're fractional. It's a fractional company. So they do fractional work for different organizations. This is the direction that things are going. And you don't need to feel bad or like you couldn't cut it.

or you weren't up to the job because you couldn't make it in corporate if you decide to not make it in corporate. There are other ways to make money and be super successful. That's why we've got to do what? We've got to find the value in what we do. We've got to be able to articulate that value because why? The value is where the money is at.

And I think that's it, I think that's all I've got today. I really do hope this was helpful. ⁓ But let me review the questions, because we ended up with five questions, not six, because I realized two were too close together, too similar. So question number one.

Are you really emotionally capable of dealing with what you have to deal with in a corporate environment to the point where your health is not affected, your mental well-being is not affected, you're not physically affected? Question number two, how do you deal with power dynamics truly? Because most likely you're going to be reporting into...

or taking orders from somebody that you don't respect, somebody who's not as smart as you, who's probably not as educated as you, how do you really deal with those? Question number three.

Question number three, how do you really handle feedback and criticism? Does your attitude change? Do you get an attitude? Do you get mad? Do you act stank? Can you brush it off? It's really hard to not do those things. It's really hard for these people to say shit to you and for you not to have an attitude about it. How do you really handle it?

Four, can you let stuff go? Can you leave it at work? Can you leave it there? Or do you bring it home and let it affect you personally? Let it affect your family? Let it affect everything? I'm at home on Christmas thinking about how I can't stand these people. These people aren't thinking about me. I was not able to let it go. I recognize that about myself. And finally, question five.

Are you a team player or do you really need to be in a more autonomous working environment?

Do you work well with other people? Real talk, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you don't want to. So that's it guys. Those are the five questions that you need to ask yourself. We'll get into more later. Actually, next week we're going to do a live with Ashley Morgan and she ⁓ is truly, truly wonderful. We actually kind of talked about this a little bit last night and

She's gonna be joining us on the live next week. So definitely look out for that. That's gonna be next Thursday at 7.30 Central time. This time we're gonna do 7.30 Central since Ashley is on the West Coast. So we're gonna go a little later and hopefully more of you guys can join. And then you guys will be able to come on and talk to us and ask questions on what to do and how to do it. She's an amazing coach.

Brilliant, brilliant woman. And we'll be able to continue the conversation and get into what if the answer to these questions is yes. Yes, yes, yes to all of them. So not bad, nothing's wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with you. It takes all kinds to make the world go round. What we've got to do is find what works best for us and head toward that. Get on that path, okay?

So guys, that's it. That's all I've got for you today. ⁓ Thank you so much for watching and I will see you on the next episode.